


Richard Pembroke and the Public Defender

by Palpalou



Category: Eternal Law, The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Foes With Benefits, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Wing Kink, should also mention OMC is technically a francis crozier stand-in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:55:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29544801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palpalou/pseuds/Palpalou
Summary: Richard Pembroke, fallen angel, makes Frank Cross, public defender, his pet project. Sparks fly, and the apocalypse looms.
Relationships: Richard Pembroke/OMC, background Hannah English/Zak Gist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2020)





	Richard Pembroke and the Public Defender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shark-from-the-park (inigosolo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inigosolo/gifts).



> For the empty space on my Terror Bingo card… if the rules allow ^^
> 
> I’m fully aware this is complete nonsense but uh, I had fun and maybe you can too :DDD Big, big thank you to shark-from-the-park who sends me awesome gifs & rambles with me, and in this specific case basically cowrote the juiciest bits. 
> 
> Kind of an AU where Eternal Law has a subplot about Richard Pembroke’s secret nemesis-with-benefits, public defender Frank Cross, guest star Jared Harris. When I started this fic I was not familiar with the British legal system; I may (must) have fudged some details on the barrister vs solicitor professions.
> 
> tl;dr Richard Pembroke is an antagonist character played by Tobias Menzies in Eternal Law, a British drama series with angels as lawyers. Frank Cross is Francis Crozier from The Terror in lawyer clothes. You may benefit from reading through the wikipedia summary of the series, but it's not necessary imo.

There was a water stain in the corner of the ceiling of Frank Cross’ office. Richard had never noticed it before. Maybe it was new, or maybe today’s position was slightly different than usual. It might have been the latter. It seemed to Richard he usually could see more of the top of the windows.

Cross snapped his hips, and Richard went cross-eyed.

He was folded in half over the dingy public defender's desk, his legs over Cross's shoulders because it was easier to taunt him if they were facing each other, even though it was hell on Richard's back and his wings tended to cramp up when he kept them folded so tight.

The reason for this lunch-hour rendezvous had been, if Richard remembered correctly, Frank Cross’ latest lost cause. Well. This one might not have been so lost, if Cross had been to contact the expert whose business card Richard had in his back pocket _right now,_ but it was half the thrill.

Normally, Richard shouldn’t even be involving himself in this; it wasn’t his case. It was insurance fraud, a classic. Man crashed car, man filed a claim. Man lied about mileage. Insurer found out, only after the money’d been paid. Insurer sued for the money back. Defendant, ill-gotten gains already siphoned into whatever sinkholes money goes to, knocked at Frank Cross’ door.

“Heard you’ve got a hearing tomorrow, Cross”, Richard panted. “What do you say we do this again at mine’s afterwards? Your thing shouldn’t last long – I know the judge. One of his tenants – is two months late on his rent – he’s very cross at all-all-all those tossers who try and ch-eat the sys—“

Cross slapped a hand over his mouth & moved Richard’s hips closer to the edge of the desk, opening him up wider, and driving deeper into him all at once. Cross was never chatty when not on the stand, and grew positively taciturn when they fucked, but Richard took that as a “shut up”. The hand was sort of superfluous, in that he instantly lost all power of speech anyway, but also very necessary, in that it stifled his sudden howl.

Cross was at his most scrumptious when he was against the wall, like today, all flushed and scowling, more brusque even than usual. He was so _determined_ , that was the beauty of it. The dark rings under his eyes were telling; he’d spent the last few nights reading through the case again and again, and he’d found nothing. And Richard had.

Well, only through whatever the equivalent of serendipity was for fallen angels-turned-barristers – a networking event. Richard did not believe in professional secrecy, or even collegial discretion, and sometimes it paid off. A drunken law professor had raised a very salient point – if the defendant had not read the mileage right off the odometer, and it was doubtful he would have as he crawled out of the flaming carcass, his statement should have been treated as estimation, not legally binding, and the lack of independent confirmation lay with the insurer.

Richard had asked for his business card on the spot—just for the pleasure of not passing it on to Cross. And how inspired he had been! This was the most fun he’d had in weeks, and he crowed internally even as he spilled helplessly in Cross’s loose grip at the apex of a particularly forceful thrust, eyes riveted on his dour, unsuspecting face.

Cross didn't last long after that, but by the time he came, Richard was a drooling mess again, back and backside twinging in equal measure. He only retained enough wit to lick Cross's palm before he took it off, just to see his face scrunching up—which was always cut– uh, fun.

Then it was over, and Cross tied off and binned the used condom while Richard dressed back up.

He caught a whiff of thought from Cross as he was checking his tie in the faint reflection from the window—trousers still crumpled around his ankles, along with his drawers, but modesty was not something he suffered from—a diffuse appreciation of the way the red of his tie complemented the flush of his backside.

He lapped up the unconscious flattery as a compliment to his professional skills. Lust was, after all, one of the capital sins, and it seemed Cross was weak to it.

(It had nothing at all to do with the pleasant warmth he knew would keep him company for the coming hour at least—and even less to do with his own subconscious preening at Cross's reluctant admiration.)

*

Pembroke, as usual, had left behind an overpowering scent of cologne and cold tobacco and, perplexingly, the slightest hint of rotten eggs, so Frank, as usual, opened his window to air the room before starting the familiar ritual of putting his desk back in order.

He felt slightly uneasy for wasting time on what really amounted to an on-the-clock hook-up, even though he knew that time was running so short that the chances he would find the angle of attack which could spare his client personal bankruptcy before the hearing were realistically slim to none. Win some, lose some, that was the game, of course, especially for a public defender. But with this case, he couldn’t help but think that, if he had had even three more days, or enough money to hire a paralegal to help him comb through the case-law…

At least he was feeling calmer. Pembroke always seemed to know when he was at his most wired, and although the other barrister was obnoxiously oily and a major pain in his arse most of the time, their encounters always helped Frank blow off excess steam.

A draft came in from the window, making the Venetian blind clatter.

A soft fluttering sound brought his attention down to the floor. A white corner peaked out from under the desk, pushed out by the wind.

Frank picked it up. It was a fancy-looking business card, from someone Frank had never heard of. He had no idea how it could have arrived here.

He looked at it pensively.

Well, why not, he thought. Might as well try it.

*

Richard was an old hand at his job. He vaguely remembered legislating copper trade disputes in Babylon. York, England, was not quite as litigious yet, but wherever he went, Richard always found work. And he had an undefinable feeling, an itch at the root of his flight feathers, which told him the city was waiting for something, and that he should wait here as well.

In the meantime, he kept doing what he did best. Being the small pebble that tripped mortals over, the small nudge that made the fall that much worse.

Frank Cross was, in the grand scheme of things, small potatoes. His success rate, on a per case average, was not extraordinarily higher than other barristers. He hadn’t distinguished himself with any high-profile cases either. And he didn’t even work for free – that was the legal aid scheme for you. But he was something of a workaholic, even compared to the lawyer baseline, and quite good at his job; and there was something to the acrimonious, spiteful way he worked his cases which had caught Richard’s attention. He had never seen a solicitor who _snarled_ while he pleaded before.

The truth was, Richard didn’t have much to do. The system was already set up against the guilty and/or presumed guilty. And humanity was so easy to tempt it really was sinful. All he was doing was oiling the scales, just a bit, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have time for a hobby.

A few days after he had come to that conclusion, he had introduced himself directly to Cross, by way of a cup of coffee, purchased especially for that purpose, spilled all over the barrister’ shirt, just as he was coming in for a common hearing.

That was three years ago. Nowadays, Frank took a much bigger chunk of Richard’s time than he had ever planned; but it had been so gradual that he hadn’t even noticed. (And if Richard had had friends, one might have told him it stopped being a hobby when you built our day around his cases, just to heckle him from the public gallery.)

And then they had started having sex.

*

It took some finesse to corral Pembroke onto his belly, but for once Frank had something like a real lunch break, a not-unwelcome benefit to a lull in cases.

And the view wasn’t bad either. Pembroke never took off more than he needed to, i.e his trousers and pants, most of the time not even further than the knees, but he had a nice arse, although on the bonier side, with two cute dimples like winks where the groove of his spine started. And there was something obscenely soft about the expense of his nape between the collar of his shirt and where hair curled softly against the back of his neck.

Frank had noticed Pembroke would flush down to his throat when he was really on the brink, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it reached all the way around. Which wasn’t strange. You noticed things, in half a year —although neither of them kept count, of course. (Or, if Pembroke didn’t, then Frank didn’t either.)

Currently, he was rolling his hips deep and purposeful into Pembroke, watching how the other’s hands clenched, vice-tight, around the plywood edge of his desk. They had been at it long enough that he could feel a sweet burn in his thighs, and blotches of sweat were starting to darken Pembroke’s fancy shirt.

“God, Cross”, Pembroke moaned on one of his slow withdrawing strokes, then his words petered out into a strangled moan, and he started again as if his voice wasn’t slightly wavering with every push and drag of Frank’s cock. “God, this is a bore, Cross. It's li-ike you’re not even trying to fuck me. Thought this was supposed to be hate sex. This feels—Oh! —This feels positively _fond_.”

Frank paused, his cockhead just pressing against the slick mouth of Pembroke’s arsehole, a sudden burn in his face. He didn’t want to imagine what Pembroke would have made of it if he had seen it.

But the best defence was always attack.

“Sure _seems_ like you like that, though,” he mused, aiming for glib, and with a grunt he angled a bit deeper so he could reach the spot he knew would make Pembroke lose it. (So maybe he had been in no particular hurry to finish. So maybe he had wanted to take his time for once, so sue him.) “But if you want more, I can always give you more,” he continued, leaning forward on his elbows, which gave him more leverage and brought him so close to Pembroke his lips brushed warm, flushed skin, and whispered with a last, wicked thrust of his hips, “…sweetheart.”

Predictably, Pembroke yowled indignantly, and Frank grinned, and then there were twin ripping sounds, and a fluttering noise, and then Frank was spluttering away a face-full of feathers.

A pigeon had come through the broken window of his small bathroom once, and it had taken him a good twenty minutes to chase it out his open window. For one second, Frank’s hindbrain was back in that moment, but those weren’t pigeon feathers. They were too long, for one, so black the eye didn’t register it as a colour. Also, they came from two enormous wings, nearly brushing the walls on both sides of Frank’s tiny office… and the wings themselves came out of two new, ragged tears in Pembroke’s shirt.

“What the hell,” Frank murmured, feeling like he had just been hit over the head with his copy of the _Corpus Juris Civilis Romani_.

“Hell”, Pembroke echoed, slumped bonelessly over the desk. “That was… that was pretty o.k., Cross.” Frank, still hard inside him, bit his lip at the clutch of intimate muscles as Pembroke twisted around. “But let’s forget the pet names, ok? I’m not that kind of–Hell!” he repeated, this time with definite feeling, when he caught side of his own wings. How he could have missed them before, Frank didn’t know, but maybe it was the same as how he would sometimes forget his glasses were perched on his head, or the way his feet were positioned when he walked.

Pembroke jerked up, pushing Frank away, who was still boggling over the fact his own personal bane, the petty git of a prosecutor he screwed on the regular (and was not developing a fondness towards) apparently was… some kind of angel? That idea was even more preposterous than the whole wings situation.

"Oh, you twat!" Pembroke exclaimed as if on cue, twisting around awkwardly to try to catch a look at his own back. He was flexible, Frank knew from experience, but not that flexible. "That shirt was _Armani_!"

The retort was automatic. “Oh, like you don’t have a full closet of those fancy shirts.”

“Oh, like that’s the point! You–“ and then his eyes fell to Frank’s groin, and he raised an appreciative eyebrow. “Well, well. Still all het up and raring to go, I see. You like them?” His wings stretched out and flapped lazily, or as much as they could in the cramped space. “Have you got a blasphemy kink I didn’t know about? It’s a common law offence, you know…”

“That law was repealed in 2008, you shyster,” Frank snorted, and Pembroke actually chuckled. This was actually familiar; the less venomous kind of back-and-forth they had started to sometimes fall into in recent months, when they weren’t actively sniping each other down around a case.

“Well, waste not, want not.”

“What are you…?”

Pembroke started forward, grabbing at Frank’s hanging belt, adroitly pulling off the wrinkled condom Frank was still wearing before prestidigitating a new packet out of his back pocket.

“Oh, I see,” Frank said. And, as Pembroke’s tight, hot mouth rolled the soft latex sheath down his straining cock, “Oh.”

From his position on his knees, Pembroke sent him an amused glance.

Frank felt himself flush. Maybe Pembroke had been on to something with the idea of blasphemy kink, because there was something quite powerful in seeing … well, something like an angel, or maybe just Pembroke, suckling at one’s prick, lashes fanning against high cheekbones and wings still spread out, a dark, feathery frame around his strong shoulders.

They wouldn’t quite stay still as Pembroke bobbed his head up and down Frank’s prick, extending and folding back as a natural counterweight to Pembroke’s movements. It was fascinating; although at first they had looked blacker than soot, Frank now realised iridescent patterns ran along the feathers when what little light came in through his window hit at just the right angle. It was also quite awkward; Frank caught one as it flapped especially closed to his face. He held his palm against the muscular joint at the highest part of it, gently, because he had seen enough nature documentaries to know how fragile bird bones were, and was surprised when instead of drawing back the wing pressed further into his hand.

Pembroke moaned around his mouthful of prick, sending delighted sparks all the way up Frank’s backbone, and a stroke of inspiration had him slipping his nails comb-like through the surface of the plumage. Beneath the coverts, the feathers were warmer, fuzzy-soft, flowing like a whisper around the tips of his fingers.

Pembroke choked around his prick, then choked again, and when Frank looked down concernedly, he saw wetness around his eyes.

He took away his hand as if it had burnt him, but Pembroke sent him a furious glance, drawing back. “Don’t you stop”, he snarled, voice hoarse. “Don’t you dare stop,” and Frank realised he was stroking his own prick, not quite hard again, but nearly there.

He ran a tentative hand along the length of the wing, and Pembroke’s head fell forward, nestling in the crook of Frank’s belly and thigh, with a long, low rumbling moan, forgetting entirely about Frank’s own straining, wet cock prodding forlornly at the long crease in his cheek. Selfish little bastard, he was.

Frank felt a warm thing swoop in his ribcage.

*

Richard watched Cross cleaning things up. It involved a perfunctory wipe of the surface of his desk, then taking various pieces of clutter out of a drawer he apparently reserved just for that purpose. A clunky old laptop, a miserable-looking spider plant in a terra-cotta mug, and a whole lot of brick-thick folders that thumped noisily when he put them down.

It was strange, seeing Cross had built habits around him. Like he had made a Richard-shaped place in his life. It gave Richard a squirmy feeling in his gut he didn’t particularly enjoy.

He would have left, he should have left, already, but his wings wouldn’t settle. Despite all of Richard’s effort, they remained stubbornly sprawled out in the tiny room, feathers fluffed up in all their gory, flaunting themselves indecently at Cross. The silver lining was that he at least must not have any idea how desperate such a display made Richard look.

“So,” Cross said. He kept glancing at him from the corner of his eyes, more tentative now for some reason than he had ever acted around Richard. Which was strange. He certainly hadn’t been shy when he had been pawing at his wings. He was probably as wrong-footed at Richard’s lack of the usual swift departure as Richard himself was. “You’ll want that shirt back, or should I bin it?”

The shirt was already more rag than cloth with the way the wings had burst through the material, and then Cross had come all over his back. Richard would only be pulling his coat back on once his wings settled.

He scoffed. “Oh, throw it. It’s from last years’ collection anyway.”

Cross blinked but didn’t comment, dropping the folded cloth in his waste basket, to be disposed of properly later.

It had been flattering, in the heat of the moment, when Cross’ grip had tightened convulsively around the edge of his wings, and he had spent himself in one, two, three long shuddering spurts over his shoulder. He had felt an errant drop splash against his sensitive feathers, hot and filthy like a brand. He would need to wash himself off at home before going anywhere else, but in the meantime the idea of walking around bearing the mark of Cross’ loss of control didn’t quite displease him.

Maybe because it had been so long since anyone had touched his wings. It was easy to goad mortals into sex, but it had been literal centuries since he had gotten that particular itch scratched.

And already he wanted Cross to put strong, careful hands on them again. He wanted to sprawl across his own queen-sized bed and have Frank wrangle his wings into gentle submission. He wanted to have Frank flat on his back and ride him into the mattress with his wings like a dark and warm cocoon around the both of them. And he didn’t much care to examine why.

Phantom need made his wings flex to show their underside, light catching across the secondary feathers. But Cross would have no frame of reference to know how foolish it made Richard look to be presenting like that for him. Even if he was looking at Richard’s wings with a kind of worryingly thoughtful squint.

“Next time, let’s do this at my place,” Richard blurted out, his face feeling rather warm. There. He had just said it.

Cross tilted his head. “… At your office?”

“At my flat.”

“Oh.” Cross’ own face turned violently red. “Uh, fine.”

(Neither realised at the time, but a soft shudder went through Richard’s wings, and the colour shifted, nearly imperceptibly, towards a very, very slightly less absolute shade of black.)

*

Frank’s briefcase was gone.

It was the latest in a disjointed list of disappearances. First it had been one of his scarves, vanished from his office. Frank had spent three days looking for it everywhere, until he had spotted Pembroke at the Crown Court with it wrapped snugly around his own neck. Frank hadn’t asked for it back, and after some time Pembroke had stopped pretending and started wearing it even when they were _supposed_ to meet. It had kept Frank warm all winter in a different way to know that Pembroke was walking around with his chin tucked in a little woollen piece of him.

Then there had been the more-or-less involuntary swapping of items that came with spending time at someone else’s house, especially when your clothes and various belongings were discarded as speedily as possible on your way to the bedroom and had then to be collected hurriedly and unobtrusively the next morning because you weren’t supposed to spent the night since you had a very early hearing the next day but you had anyway, and you still didn’t want to wake the owner of the flat, currently snoring away spread-eagled on the bed, when you had just carefully crawled out from under one of his wings. Mostly socks, one time underpants which had only felt _slightly_ too snug at first, and the occasional tie.

And now his briefcase. Except this one didn’t really make sense, because Frank could not for the life of him imagine Pembroke having designs on it, with its shabby, peeling leather, and worn seams at the bottom. He sighed, and looked one last time around the hallway where he was sure he had dropped it eight hours ago.

His eyes stopped on a shiny, pale brown leather bag on the small table by Pembroke’s door. And then he looked back to the coat rack, where Pembroke’s own black attaché still hung, as usual. He scratched at the back of his head, dislodging a small off-black feather which had remained stuck in his cowlick, and then he took a peek inside the brown bag, which had the unmistakeable smell of new things, and, yes, those were indeed his files.

Pembroke was still in the kitchen, peering suspiciously at the recyclable coffee pods Frank had brought. Frank stuck his head through the door, only just catching the tail end of a mumbled “… going to change anything...”

“… Did you steal my bag?”

“What? No.” Pembroke instantaneously replied.

Frank tilted his head so he could see the waste bin. The strap of his old bag was trailing out like a tongue. Pembroke, following his line of sight, kicked it further under the table with a discordant screeching of metal on tile, and looked back at him stonily.

His shoulders moved in a way Frank had learnt meant he was consciously keeping his wings closed under the wool cardigan Frank had dropped on his bedside table three months ago without a word. Three days later it had been assimilated into Pembroke’s closet, thought Frank had underestimated Pembroke’s sheer length and the sleeves stopped a bit too high above the wrists. He never wore it outside the house.

Frank raised an eyebrow, not quite able to keep back a charmed quirk of the lips. Pembroke was still malignantly smarmy and prone to obnoxious pettiness, and his flat smelt like artificial sandalwood and old cigarette smoke, but in that moment he would have spread him out on the kitchen table like a feast if he had had even just fifteen minutes to spare. “Fine. See you at lunch, then?”

Pembroke grimaced. “Oh, lunch’s no good. I’ve got… I’m busy today.”

“Oh, yes. The Hale brothers case? See you next Monday, then.”

Even though Frank spent virtually one in two evenings at Pembroke’s, they kept to an unspoken rule that weekends were off-limit. Which is why Frank was very surprised when Pembroke paused, something strange passing across his face, and then said,

“Let’s do tonight.”

“…Are you sure?” Frank asked, like Pembroke could have gotten the day of the week wrong. His stomach was suddenly filled with butterfly, which hadn’t happened to him since university.

Pembroke shrugged. (Butterflies were doing a number on him as well, along with other less pleasant critters, such as worms, garter snakes and toads.) “Why not? There might be stuff coming up next week as well, you never know.”

“Right, then. See you this evening.” And this time it was unmistakably a full, glowing smile which he couldn’t keep back. It made his rounded, craggy face look as glorious as a sun, and after a few seconds Pembroke had to look away.

Pembroke’s case files were still spread out on the coffee table, and Frank caught a glimpse as he passed by. Along with things like forensic reports and financials, he was surprised to see pictures of the younger Hale brother defence team, a prickly pale-haired man Frank had come across once and immediately detested, and his baby-faced, more congenial colleague. And, half-hidden under those, a photograph of a young blonde woman, along with what looked like a sheaf of medical files. He shrugged, and focused on his own case today, an inheritance dispute around a derelict family house none of the children wanted to sell nor renovate.

*

Richard had bought this box of cigars the day the angels known respectively as Zak Gist and Tom Greening had touched down in York.

It had been like clouds parting, as the purpose of his long wait in expectant York had suddenly become clear. A small revelation ahead of the great and terminal one, _apokalypsis_.

It was very gratifying to finally get to break it open. In the cathedral, yesterday, he had been so furious when his temptation had seemed to glide off of Zak like water from a duck’s back in the end. Losing the Hale case at the last minute had been adding insult to injury.

But then he had seen Hannah English sitting in the public gallery, and it had felt like some monumental mechanism finally shifting into gear. He had forgotten, for all his talents, to have faith in serendipity. And that, for all of his tepid words, and for all of Richard’s efforts, Zak had _always_ been the best at ruining things for Zak.

The spring air was warm, enough that he thought he might take a walk later, and the light that streamed in through his window was golden and bright. He could feel the heavenly spotlight was on them today in a way it hadn’t been in quite some time. It all was coming to fruition.

And for some reason Richard was feeling something very, very unusual for him. It had started some weeks ago, but it was tenuous enough he could easily suppress it at first. Now there was no way he could ignore the niggling, the scratching, the itching, the squirming, of perfectly incongruous doubt. He had not even felt doubt the day he had left his prime real estate cloud for a frankly average dolmen back when Europeans hadn’t learnt windows yet.

He had always been persuaded that humanity, so easy to lead astray as to be deserving of it, was nothing but a formidable heap of mewling and hypocrisy and sheer waste of potential.

But now that the mewling, hypocrisy and potential would all be gone soon, he found himself staring at the one cigar he had taken out of the box. And in his mouth, the usual taste of ash and sulphur had been overpowered by a chalky sick tang.

(On the square in front of York Minster, Hannah English walked up to Zak Gist.)

There was a knock at the door.

He gave no answer, but the door opened anyway, and Cross’ head appeared in the gap. At first he was wearing a lopsided smile, the one he had started to wear for Richard at some point. They would be gone soon as well, Cross’ smiles, so Richard let himself take it in. But it faded away as Cross stepped in with a frown.

“Are you… crying?”

Was he? A drop splashed on his hand, answering the question. Yes, he was. Uh.

He raised a hand in Cross’ direction, maybe to order him out. Instead, Cross pushed the door closed with a heel and made the few steps across the office so he could take it.

(Inside York Minster, Zak Gist was leading Hannah English up a winding staircase so narrow they could barely keep a hold of each other’s hand.)

Cross sat on the edge of Richard’s desk, and dabbed awkwardly at Richard’s eyes with a handkerchief he had pulled one-handed out of his left pocket. “There, there, ” he said, soothing.

He hadn’t let go of Richard’s hand. Richard stared at the way they fit, fingers wrapped in loose holds around each other’s palms, as if they had been built for this specific purpose, and sniffed piteously. This, too, would be gone soon, Cross’ hands, his smiles, his worried scowls and his furious ones as well, and the occasional brush of his luminous thoughts. He could feel it even now, the peculiar glow Cross radiated, like a warm caress of his soul against Richard's skin.

(On York Minster’s roof, suspended between heaven and earth, Zak Gist and Hannah English looked only at each other.)

“…Frank,” Richard whispered, and Frank bent forward inquiringly, and he was so close Richard only needed to pull down ever so slightly on his hand to tip him over from his precarious perch. Richard raised his head to meet him half-way.

Technically, it was a kiss. It hurt a fair bit, because their mouth knocked into each other in a way that felt more like being slapped in the mouth. Richard swore and twisted his face away.

Then Frank tugged his hand free, and brought both up to cradle Richard’s jaw, and tilted his head back. Half-collapsed into each other, they kissed again. Despite his stinging lower lip, Richard felt a soft warmth, which started low in his belly before quickly spreading through his whole body. He barely registered the swelling sensation and protracted ripping sound which meant his wings had once again burst out, this time through shirt and jacket, without his conscious decision. They sent the flower vase on his windowsill crashing, putting a bouquet of half-withered roses out of their misery and spilling water all over the hardwood floors.

Neither Frank nor Richard took notice.

(Hannah English felt Zak Gist falter as he was leaning towards her, and he spluttered, and said, “What the bloody hell just…!?”)

In Mrs Sherringham’s living room, the closed clock on the mantelpiece stuttered, and hiccuped, and started leaking a thin line of smoke. When Mrs Sherringham, her heart in her mouth, opened it, she saw the display flickering wildly, red diodes flashing on and off too quickly for the eye to follow. The lights flared painfully bright once before finally switching off for good, with a noise like a dying bee.

And in Richard Pembroke’s office, Frank ran a comforting palm along Richard’s feathers, and in the wake of his hand, dusty black fell away like powder to reveal a dove-grey plumage.

And the world kept on turning.

*

**Author's Note:**

> *I just had to reference tumblr's darling, ancient-Babylonian copper merchant Ea-Nasir... Hope you spotted it ^^


End file.
